title: Speech-in-noise tests for multilingual hearing screening and diagnostics1.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  New complementary multilingual speech-in-noise tests in Russian, Turkish, and Spanish for hearing self-screening purposes and follow-up hearing diagnostics are compared to the speech tests of the European project, HearCom (Hearing in the Communication Society).
  
  
  METHODS
  The tests consist of spoken numbers (Digit Triplet Test; Smits, Kapteyn, & Houtgast, 2004) or sentences (Matrix Test; e.g., Hagerman, 1982) presented in a background noise and estimate the speech reception threshold, which is the signal-to-noise ratio that yields 50% speech intelligibility. All tests were developed according to the HearCom minimum quality standards for speech intelligibility tests. This report presents a cross-language comparison of reference speech intelligibility functions for monaural headphone measurements with normal-hearing listeners. The same model function was employed to describe the speech intelligibility functions for all of the tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Reference speech intelligibility functions of the new versions of the Digit Triplet Test and Matrix Test show high comparability to the HearCom tests. In order to achieve the highest possible comparability across languages, language- and speaker-dependent factors in speech intelligibility should be compensated for.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To date, several complementary tests for screening and diagnostics have been developed in several languages. Adhering to the HearCom standards, the tests are highly comparable across languages. For the Matrix Test, equal syntax and linguistic complexity were maintained across languages due to common methodological standards.
authors.affiliation: Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany. melanie.zokoll@uni-oldenburg.de
authors.forename: Melanie A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Zokoll
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hochmuth
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Warzybok
authors.forename: Kirsten C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Wagener
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Buschermöhle
authors.forename: Birger
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kollmeier
mesh_terms: D001302:Audiometry, Speech / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D019303:Multilingualism; D009622:Noise; D012016:Reference Values; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods
keywords: Digit Triplet Test; HearCom; Matrix Test; hearing screening; speech perception; speech reception threshold (SRT); speech-in-noise test